Missouri applied for statehood in 1819 as a slave state. The House of Representatives then passed a resolution which banned slaveholders from bringing enslaved people into to Missouri as a condition of statehood. The next year, Maine applied for statehood. The senate decided combine Maine and Missouri's requests and voted to admit Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The senate then added an amendment that prohibited slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Territory north of Missouri's southern boundary. Once this issue had settled, pro-slavery members of the Missouri constitutional convention added a clause to the proposed state constitution which prohibited free African Americans from coming into the state.
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| The Emancipation Ordinance of Missori |